winter bliss

What does winter bring to mind? Scraping snow and ice, bitter cold temperatures, or short days and dark nights? Why not think about flowering branches and spring bulbs, terrariums filled with moss and your favorite fern, or planting seeds and starting flowers and veggies for your spring garden? Just because it’s winter doesn’t mean you have to stop gardening.

• Build your own terrarium. Gather some moss, soil, a plant or two, and a glass vessel. Be creative—layer the moss and soil, nestle the plant into the soil, and add some twigs or pebbles for decoration. Avoid direct sunlight for best results.
  
  
• Grow your favorite tomato or flower from seeds. Get an empty egg carton, fill with moist soil, and plant 1 to 3 seeds per egg cup. Cover the container with plastic wrap and sit it in a consistently warm location. Watch for the seeds to sprout. Once sprouted, remove the plastic and keep in a sunny spot until sprouts are ready to plant outside in the spring.
  
  
• Fill your favorite vase with forsythia branches. Cut some branches to the desired length, smash the cut ends with one hit of a hammer, and place them in a vase filled with room-temperature water. Watch as flower buds emerge into beautiful yellow blooms. Change water often to enjoy 2 to 3 weeks of blooms.

Simple projects like these help me feel like spring is just around the corner. Soon it will be time to fill your planters with pansies, so take time to enjoy what this season has to offer!

Autumn

Fall has so much to offer those who love spending time in the garden. The chill in the air, the deep rich colors, and the smell of the air that lets us know winter is around the corner! If you think that fall is only for raking leaves, think again. Put on a sweater, pull out the garden gloves, and head out to the garden.

Late fall is the perfect time to plant bulbs, such as tulips, narcissus, hyacinth, muscari, and crocus so that they will bloom in spring. Planting bulbs now will give you great early spring color and the blooms are great as cut flowers!

How to plant:

• dig a hole 4-6" deep
• place a bulb point-up in the hole
• add some bulb fertilizer to each hole – such as “Bulb-tone”
• cover with soil

Other tips:

• dig up and pot chives to bring inside for winter use
• cover your garden tools with a light coating of oil to protect them from rust
• save large containers from freezing by wrapping loosely with chicken wire or burlap, then fill with leaves for insulation
• move smaller containers planted with trees or shrubs into an unheated garage or shed to prevent winter burn
• mulch perennial beds after trimming back plants for a tidy look and for winter protection
• cut and use twigs and evergreen trimmings in your planters and window boxes to add interest and architecture

Happy Fall!

Tips for July

It is hard to believe that it is already July. It seems that, just yesterday, I was pulling out the spring pansies to fill the planters with summer blooming annuals. The summer is moving by so fast—but there is still plenty of gardening to be done. I use the 4th of July as a reminder date to do the following gardening tasks:

• “Pinch” back your mums and asters. Trimming them back to half their height will encourage the plants to bloom in the fall and become much more sturdy. This means you should not have to stake them.

• Trim any of the early spring blooming shrubs you may have missed. Azaleas, Lilacs, and Rhododendron all set their blooms this summer for the following spring. If you wait to much longer to trim you will not have the show of color, come spring, that you expected to see.

• Harvest any of your vegetables that are ripe, pull out any plants that are “spent”, and sow a new crop of veggies. Spinach, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and many root vegetables (such as beets, carrots, & turnips) will prefer the cool autumn temperatures to mature.

• Replace any annuals that may have died and fill in any spaces that still need color or foliage. There is still a great selection of plants available waiting to be planted!

July is a great month to be in the garden! The days are hot but come evening nothing beats sitting on the patio with my family, enjoying all the fruits of my labor. The colors and fragrances are wonderful. Enjoy your garden!!

it's summertime!

Fill your planters with ever-blooming annuals, grasses, and colorful foliage. Planters, fertilizers, soil, tools, garden art -- everything you need to make your summer garden beautiful is in stock now!

spring is in the air!

Pansies, primroses, tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, seeds, herbs, summer bulbs, pussy willow and flowering branches in abundance. It's the time of year when something new arrives every week. Stop in often to see the color and breathe in spring.